My uncle died this weekend in a senseless auto-versus-bicycle collision. His funeral is Thursday, in Wisconsin. I truly do thank you my Readers in advance for your sympathies. But I do not write today to seek sympathy for the loss. I write to point out a dilemma imposed upon me by this very saddening turn of events.
Death, you see, cares nothing for one’s professional obligations.
Friday is a double deadline in my legal practice. I must file an application for review of an appeal gone bad with the California Supreme Court. I must also file a motion by Friday in a court here in California which is a centerpiece move of my client’s case in one of the bet-the-company lawsuits I am handling right now, one which I have angled towards for months now as a significant part of my strategy. No extensions of these deadlines are possible. Both documents are only fractionally written at best, and the bulk of the work done on them so far has been mental, inside my head. Other professional obligations have occupied my time over the past week and still others await me this week.
Another lawyer at my firm is capable of doing the first of these two major tasks, but as a practical matter, I am the only one capable of doing the other. Had I the entire week in my office to do this work, it could be completed, with good quality and on time. With some stress and maybe a late night or two, but stress and late nights are sometimes part of the business, that’s part of the bargain you make when you accept the benefits and prestige that go along with a career in the professions, a part of the bargain I normally bear with only minor grumbling and complaint. So my planned stress for the week, you see, was avoiding short-cause, short-notice jury trials (which I detest in the first place), so that I could free up enough time to attend to these two larger projects. Should I go to Wisconsin, my week just got a lot shorter.
And crass as it seems as compared to the other issues, in order to travel on short notice I would have to both forego income and borrow more money than I’m comfortable owing.
I’ve been told not to go by my father, who assures me that everyone will understand. That may even be true and I want to do him the courtesy of believing that this is a true statement. Maybe everyone will understand. Everyone but me, that is.
I recall that my grandfather died the day after I started college, and I took the advice of everyone around me to not to skip the week of school that attending the funeral would have cost me. The school would have made an accommodation. I could have simply studied harder, something that would have benefitted me in other ways, too. It took me quite some time afterwards to forgive myself for doing that. I have less ability to seek a professional or financial accommodation today than I did a generation ago when death last visited at a particularly awkward time.
But I’m also supposed to be able to stand on my own two feet at this point in my life, and to make responsible choices. I have a card issued by the state bar that says so and the trust and love of my extended family and my stable of clients who rely on it being true. Only the thing of it is, I can see very clearly that there is no way that it can all get done.
There is never enough money, there is never enough time, and both life and death happen when they do and not always when you are optimally able to address them. These things are not unique to those who follow a profession. But let me tell you, they didn’t teach me in law school how to reconcile the combined pressures of time, love, grief, economy, and duty. Nor were there lessons about how to relieve myself of the inevitable byproduct of this alchemy of stressors, guilt, when my ability to address at least one of these stressors is sacrificed.
As, inevitably and imminently, I must sacrifice something.
In Michigan for a while there, we reached the point where we didn’t have (or need) family reunions because we had so many wakes and funerals. Too many.
Is there any way to set up a for-reals family reunion where everybody can get together and eat and talk and hang out without having to wear black?
This is a most excellent suggestion. Thank you.
stress and late nights are sometimes part of the business, that’s part of the bargain you make when you accept the benefits and prestige that go along with a career in the professions
They’re also part of the bargain for many jobs without nearly that level of prestige. As against that, there was a time when I needed an indefinite amount of time off to deal with a personal crisis, and the response was “Of course. Call us if you need anything.”
If I worked at a very, very large firm, I might get something like that. Unstated but understood along with that reaction would be, “…But your billable hour quota will remain in place; you’re making this up later.”
My condolences on your loss, and my sympathies for your situation. I did not go home when my grandmother died, a couple of years ago, and I faced a similar perplexity.
Thanks, Maribou. It’s consoling to know it’s not just me, that others have been faced with similar sorts of dilemmas.
With my typical fraction of a night’s sleep under my belt, I’m about 80% resolved to do what I can between now and Wednesday and hand off the work to a colleague to complete, so I can be with my family. There may be some shortcuts available to help on the professional side of things.
My wife has typically been in a position where there was simply no way she would be allowed to go. She missed her grandfather’s funeral even though she not only had the vacation days, but had specific bereavement days allotted. They simply wouldn’t let her use them. She’s only now in a position more like yours, where she can take the days, but they come at a cost.
In between some of these jobs she worked for the IHS. When her father got sick (it seemed almost certainly terminal), they gave her all the time she needed. At not-inconsiderable inconvenience to them.
From the sounds of it, the issue is not so much with a bad attitude on the part of your employer, but rather the nature of the job you’re in. They might let you, but the price to be paid is pretty significant.
The decision is, of course, yours and only yours to make. In your shoes, I would probably not go (and would be quietly thanking my father back and forth for giving me cover on that score). But it’s easy for me to say, since we’re kind of used to missing out on such things, and it’s not our family obligation.
It’s the external events, not the law firm, which are imposing the cruel pressure.
My bad. I misunderstood your comment to Maribou.
Indeed, the firm has come through for me in a big way.
The petition to the Supreme Court is more than three-quarters written already because another attorney took the initiative and got the hard work done. And I did find a way to shortcut the other motion work, so I should be able to have all of my portion of the work done by Wednesday.
Which means I don’t need to skip the funeral.
My condolences, Friend Likko.
And I’m so pleased you can go to Wisconsin afterall. Nothing like friends and colleagues getting your back. It’s a rare and beautiful thing.
I am so sorry for your loss, Burt.
Thanks again to Tod, Tom, Will, Jay, Maribou, Mike … everyone in the community. It’s a tangible comfort to know that there’s that many friends here.
My condolences. That we serve multiple masters is the reality, not the hardship. That they sometimes attempt to devour each other, as they do here, is the hardship. That you lost a loved one is the tragedy. No one should fault you for whatever you choose. I trust no one will. Godspeed.
I know that many others have already expressed their condolences, but I can’t read the OP without feeling compelled to join them. I am very sorry for your loss, and I hope you can find some measure of peace with whichever decision you make.
Same here.
I really think you ought to go regardless, or you’ll regret it for a lifetime.
My suggestion is a good meal and a good night’s sleep. Makes all the difference for a more productive day of writing with pressing deadlines. Waking up early one day can be a blessing if used wisely (I met such a deadline today through just such a thing).
If there are electronic filing systems available, I think I would be darned tempted to make the trip a working trip, and use the flight time for review of drafts, etc. with hard copies.